Christopher Plummer appears to have moved into a new phase in his career: the wacky beard phase.

2009 saw him model the matted, rugged look in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

For 2010, he's outdone himself.

The Last Station is the story of a rich old man (Plummer's big-bearded Tolstoy, for that is who he's playing) who seems to be besieged by nefarious sycophants (the kind who drink a lot of black tea and hold polite intellectual debates for hours at a time in the garden).

Scene from The Last Station (2009)

The main focus of the story seems to be on the relationship with his wife, an emotionally-fraught Helen Mirren. Here she is, emoting, reliably.

Helen Mirren in The Last Station (2009)

And, of course, the whole thing shall be seen through the eyes of a naive, starstruck young man, brought in from outside. The kind of man that is usually played by James McAvoy.

James McAvoy in The Last Station (2009)

An overexcitable, sneezing chap, whose main purpose in this film appears to be that of keeping diaries.

And that's about it. In terms of accurately portraying the film it is flogging, then, this is one of the better examples of trailer that we've seen in a while. Yes – there will be a lot of conservatively dressed people slurping tea. And talking. Make no mistake about it: there will be a lot of talking.

So clarity is not, in this situation, what we are questioning. No, in this case, our main problem is with the typeface.

Screengrab from trailer for The Last Station

Because as soon as the words start rolling across the screen, they change the nature of the trailer. Ugly and yellow, unfashionably thick and ornate, the letters then – horrendously – reveal themselves to be made of purest gold when they glint against the light.

It is a typeface that screams "HELLO! I am a boring adaptation from the 1970s that someone is forcing you to sit through in a GCSE English lit class!"

And even though you know on a rational, reasonable level that this film has been made recently, you start to have doubts. You start wondering if, perhaps, this indeed is a movie from the mid-70s; after all, Christopher Plummer could have grown a ridiculous beard any time at all.

Christopher Plummer in The Last Station (2009)

And Helen Mirren is very versatile – with the use of clever makeup, she could easily have managed this role 30 years back. Granted, there is a slight crimp in the argument when you consider that James McAvoy wouldn't be out of nappies. But since James McAvoy doesn't appear to be able to age much, he might actually be immortal. Perhaps he's been hanging around and being 25 for the last half century without anyone noticing.

But let's face it, there is no way that any studio marketing department would think that this is a good idea:

Screengrab from trailer for The Last Station

Specifically, proclaiming the film-maker as a major selling point, when you consider that many of the people watching this might say, "WHO?!", and immediately turn to the internet to find out. Where they would discover the only film of his they might have seen was the romantic comedy One Fine Day with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer. Or, possibly, SoapDish, a madcap comedy set in the world of American soap opera and starring Kevin Kline. Or, less likely still, his starry A Midsummer Night's Dream – though it is testimony to past form with wacky beards.

So, in summary: here we have a trailer that flips from tightly-constructed and perfectly-aimed to downright odd and outdated. We start roughly in the 21st century; then, a mere two minutes later, nip back in time. It's as if someone is attempting to create a set of nesting Russian dolls made out of film. Which begs the question: why on Earth would you want to do that?